FSF announces publication of two new books by Richard Stallman

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Friday, May 6th, 2011 — The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has just released in tandem the second edition of its president and founder Richard Stallman's selected essays, Free Software, Free Society, and his semi-autobiography, Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman and the Free Software Revolution.

The new edition of Free Software, Free Society features a number of
improvements: it has both new essays and updated versions of classic
pieces on the GNU Project and free software. Part of the book is
devoted to the issue of language framing and its significance in the
survival of free software; another discusses the traps that erode
computer-user freedoms, and a third urges software users to choose
civic values and community over convenience. This edition also adds an
index, and a new introduction by FSF licensing compliance engineer
Brett Smith.

Also now in print is GNU Press's second edition of Free as in
Freedom, Sam Williams's biography of Richard Stallman, revised and
annotated by Stallman. Williams released the first edition of the book
under the GNU Free Documentation License, thus encouraging others to
modify and improve upon the work. While the second edition is actually
a new joint work, it follows in this original spirit. "I have aimed,"
writes Stallman, "to make this edition combine the advantages of my
knowledge and Williams's interviews and outside viewpoint." Stallman
preserves all of Williams's relevant quotes and most of his personal
impressions, and contrasts them with his own.

These books will be available electronically as PDFs but will notably
not be distributed in the Amazon Kindle format or for any other
proprietary ebook reading platform, because of the Digital
Restrictions Management (DRM) those systems impose on users. "This
malicious device," says Stallman, "is designed to attack the
traditional freedoms of readers: There's the freedom to acquire a book
anonymously, paying cash — impossible with the Kindle for all
well-known recent books. There's the freedom to give, lend, or sell a
book to anyone you wish — blocked by DRM and unjust licenses. Then
there's the freedom to keep a book — denied by a back door for remote
deletion of books."

Proceeds from the sale of these books will help fund the FSF's
campaigns to defend and promote computer users' rights — including
its work against DRM via the DefectiveByDesign.org campaign.

Ordering: the books can be ordered online at
http://shop.fsf.org, where signed copies are also available.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to
promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and
use of free (as in freedom) software — particularly the GNU operating
system and its GNU/Linux variants — and free documentation for free
software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites,
located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information
about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.